I'm long-term seriously ill, and can't work, even part-time, in academia, or industry, or any other job.

I'm planning to produce some more journal articles, following advice from my external in the viva, and a chat with my supervisor afterwards. And I'd like to do some more independent research, and turn those into more articles.

My university has strict limits too: 4 years for full-time PhD-ers, 6 years for part-timers. I'm part-time, and would have been allowed 7 years by my funding council (AHRC). But the uni deadline was tighter, and I managed to come within that with about 6 weeks to spare :)

The fees are much cheaper at my uni. 90 pounds per year for a matriculation in continuation fee, for the writing up period after the initial (usually funded) 3 years full-time or longer part-time equivalent.

Ah right. Final draft. It's in your sups' hands now, so have a well-deserved rest over the next few days :)

Oh great news! Do you have to get a bound copy for submission, or is it simply a case of emailing it in? Great outcome whatever.

It's probably nothing to worry about, and her way of having some control over her life. So long as her eating habit doesn't start to affect her health it should be fine, and she'll work through it in her own time.

Just be there for her as a friend as usual, to talk to / be company for her as she wants.

Good luck.

I seem to have been a bit fast ... I wrote my literature review in 3 months, and I was part-time/half-time, so that was equivalent to a much shorter time full-time. I'm humanities too.

By the end of my first year (equivalent to 6 months full-time) I'd completed much of the first phase of my research. By the end of my second year (equivalent to 12 months full-time) I'd started on the next phase, had written a draft for my chapter 3, and had written and submitted a journal paper based on my research.

I really needed to get going on things though. I have a progressive neurological disease, and was deteriorating more as time went on, with increasing brain damage and worsening disability. So I really had to get cracking in the early stages of my PhD. I couldn't assume I could do stuff later.

I have over 300 in EndNote which doesn't have all my references in it. I have about 300 articles/books in the secondary sources section of my final thesis bibliography (recently submitted, viva'd, and hard bound ready for final post-corrections submission).

I didn't use EndNote to generate my references/bibliography automatically, so there is a bit of a mismatch between the two.

Oh brilliant news! I was so pleased when I logged in just now and saw your thread. Well done!

I had a similar problem, but in my case it was another current student who had started at about the same time as me, at another university, and was doing a very closely related topic. We met to discuss where there was overlap, where difference. Unfortunately the other student moved closer to my topic over time, and as a full-timer (I'm part-time) he completed his PhD before me. But my work was still distinctive enough, and I recently passed my viva. Oh and I published first.

Be very careful about sending any more detailed information about your research to other students / academics etc. It's best to keep that sort of thing close to your chest. I was very hedgy about what I said to the other student, and he did the same to me.

One tip from me: I wrote my abstract after the conclusions, so that I could use my most important conclusions in my abstract. Basically I took the first paragraph or so from my intro chapter, added a bit about historiography (existing research) and methodology, then summarised my chapter structure, and summarised my final conclusions, basically drawing on the final paragraph of my last chapter. It was written in just a few minutes that way, rather than agonising over it. And I did the really important thing in an abstract, which is to emphasize your contribution.

Good luck for the last push! If you can just keep going for a bit you can have a massive rest afterwards :)